Mr, St, John Brodrick, with whom everybody sympathises very. profoundly in the snd loss which he has just sustained in the death of his wife, Lady Hilda! Brodrick, has not acted altogether wisely in his quarrel with the Daily Mail."
three separate occasions the Daily Mail" has published the contents of what were at the time confidential War Office documents; one was the scheme of Army Reform, another had reference to Lord Kitcheuer's new phu of campaign, and third was the dispatch containing evidence of the shooting of British wounded by the Boers at Vinkfontein. As a punishment' Mr. Brodrick determined 10 deprive the "Daily Mail" of all the official information which the War Office supplies to the newspapers generally, including Lord Ki chener's dispatches and the casualty. lis The Daily Mail" thereupon publish a violent attack on Mr, Brodrick, in which they attributed his notion to annoyance because the journal had forced the hands of the Government by compelling them to publish the; facts of the Viakfontein outrazes—facts which, they alleged, the Government desired to suppress,—Mr. Swift McNiell and other Irish members, desiring at once to harass the Government and have a dig at the "Daily Mail," raised the question as a breach of privilege, and the House xcoordingly declared the article to' be w breach of privilege, but declined to summon Mr. Alfred Hxtmsworth to the bar to be reprimanded. No one sym-Bathises with the "Daily Mai," but Dis, rodrick's attempt to punish it was ill-advis-d and foolish. In the first place if he had known anything about newspapers he would have realised that it is quite impossible tu prevent them from obtaining the official information indirectly, and in the second place, since the "Daily Mail" has by far the largest circulation of all the newspapers, he injures a large section of the public, if he succeeds in preventing that journal from publishing the lists of those killed and wounded ut the front.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.